Editing Myles Coverdale (section)

==Legacy==
Coverdale's legacy has been far-reaching, especially that of his first complete English Bible of 1535. For the 400th anniversary of the Authorised [[King James Version|King James Bible]], in 2011, the Church of England issued a resolution, which was endorsed by the General Synod.<ref name=GS1748A>{{cite web|last1=Anon|title=Diocesan Synod Motion – Confidence in The Bible – 11/04/2011|url=https://www.churchofengland.org/media/1237426/gs%201748a.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402153923/https://www.churchofengland.org/media/1237426/gs%201748a.pdf |archive-date=2015-04-02 |url-status=live|website=Church of England|publisher=Church of England General Synod|access-date=28 February 2015}}</ref> Starting with the Coverdale Bible, the text included a brief description of the continuing significance of the Authorised King James Bible (1611) and its immediate antecedents:
* The [[Coverdale Bible]] (1535)
* The [[Matthew Bible]] (1537)
* The [[Great Bible]] (1539)
* The [[Geneva Bible]] (1557, the New Testament; 1560, the whole Bible)
* The [[Bishops' Bible]] (1568)
* The [[Douay–Rheims Bible|Rheims-Douai Bible]] (1582, the New Testament; 1609–1610, the whole Bible)
* The Authorised [[King James Version|King James Bible]] (1611)

As indicated above, Coverdale was involved with the first four of the above. He was partially responsible for [[Matthew Bible|Matthew's Bible]].<ref name="ONDB"/><ref group=note>According to Daniell, the second half of the Old Testament of the Matthew's Bible was Coverdale's translation.</ref> In addition to those mentioned above, he produced a diglot New Testament in 1538.<ref name="Hughes"/>{{rp|101}} He was extensively involved with editing and producing the Great Bible. He was also part of the group of "Geneva Exiles" who produced the [[Geneva Bible]]<ref name="ONDB"/> – the edition preferred, some ninety-five years later, by [[Oliver Cromwell]]'s army and Parliamentarians.
[[File:Miles Coverdale, Goostly Psalmes and Spirituall Songes.jpg|thumb|Fragment of Miles Coverdale's ''Goostly Psalmes and Spirituall Songes'' in the [[Bodleian Library]], Oxford]]
Coverdale's translation of the [[Psalms]] (based on Luther's version and the Latin Vulgate) have a particular importance in the history of the English Bible.<ref name=BibleResearchPsalms>{{cite web|last1=Marlowe|first1=Michael D.|title=Coverdale's Psalms|url=http://www.bible-researcher.com/prayerbook1.html|website=Bible Research – Internet Resources for Students of Scripture Online since February 2001|publisher=Michael D. Marlowe, 2001 – 2012|access-date=20 April 2015}}</ref> His translation is still used in the Anglican [[Book of Common Prayer]].<ref name="OUPBibleEng"/> It is the most familiar translation for many in the Anglican Communion worldwide, particularly those in collegiate and cathedral churches.<ref name=LutheransOnline>{{cite web|last1=Peterson W S and Macys V|title=Psalms – The Coverdale translation|url=https://www.lutheransonline.com/lo/675/FSLO-1059011476-804675.pdf|website=Little Gidding: English Spiritual Traditions – 2000|publisher=Authors|access-date=13 March 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150218185919/http://www.lutheransonline.com/lo/675/FSLO-1059011476-804675.pdf|archive-date=18 February 2015}}</ref> Many musical settings of the psalms also make use of the Coverdale translation. For example Coverdale's renderings are used in [[Handel's Messiah|Handel's ''Messiah'']], based on the Prayer Book Psalter rather than the King James Bible version. His translation of the [[Roman Canon]] is still used in some Anglican and [[Anglican Use]] [[Catholic Church|Roman Catholic]] churches. Less well known is Coverdale’s early involvement in hymn books. Celia Hughes believes that in the days of renewed biblical suppression after 1543, the most important work of Coverdale, apart from his principal Bible translation, was his ''Ghostly Psalms and Spiritual Songs'' .<ref name="Hughes" /> This she calls "the first English hymn book" and "the only one until the publication of the collection by Sternhold and Hopkins."  (This was more than twenty years later). The undated print probably was done parallel to his Bible translation in 1535.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Leaver|first=Robin A.|date=1982|title=A Newly-Discovered Fragment of Coverdale's Goostly Psalmes|journal=Jahrbuch für Liturgik und Hymnologie|volume=26|pages=130–150}}</ref> Coverdale’s first three hymns are based on the Latin [[Veni Creator Spiritus]], preceding its other English translations such as that of 1625 by Bishop J. Cosin by more than ninety years.<ref group="note">Still used as Hymn No. 153 of the English Hymnal – "Come Holy Ghost, our souls inspire, ..." (NEH No. 138) with English words by Bishop Cosin, music by [[Thomas Tallis]]. See The English Hymnal – With Tunes, First ed. Ralph Vaughan Williams, London: Oxford University Press, 1906.</ref> However, the majority of the hymns are based on the Protestant hymnbooks from Germany, particularly [[Johann Walter]]'s settings of [[Martin Luther]]'s hymns such as ''[[A Mighty Fortress Is Our God|Ein feste Burg]]''. Coverdale intended his ''"godly songs" for "our young men ... and our women spinning at the wheels."''  Thus Hughes argues that he realised that for the less-privileged, his scriptural teaching could be learnt and retained more readily by song rather than by direct access to the Bible, which could often be prohibited. However, his hymnbook also ended up on the list of forbidden books in 1539, and only one complete copy of it survives which is today held in [[Queen's College, Oxford]].[https://www.queens.ox.ac.uk/events/special-lecture-celebrate-500th-anniversary-reformation] Two fragments survived as binding material and are now in the [[Bodleian Library, Oxford]], and in the [[Beinecke Library]] at [[Yale]].{{citation needed|date=January 2020}}

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 |quote  = Miles Coverdale was a man who was loved all his life for that ‘singular uprightness’ recorded on his tomb. He was always in demand as a preacher of the gospel. He was an assiduous bishop. He pressed forward with great work in the face of the complexities and adversities produced by official policies. His gift to posterity has been from his scholarship as a translator; from his steadily developing sense of English rhythms, spoken and sung; and from his incalculable shaping of the nation's moral and religious sense through the reading aloud in every parish from his ‘Bible of the largest size’.
 |source = David Daniell, ‘Coverdale, Miles (1488–1569)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, October 2009 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/6486, accessed 15 February 2015].
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Coverdale is honoured, together with [[William Tyndale]], with a [[feast day]] on the [[Calendar of saints (Episcopal Church in the United States of America)|liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA)]] on 6 October. His extensive contacts with English and Continental Reformers was integral to the development of successive versions of the Bible in the English language.{{citation needed|date=January 2020}}